The National Commission on Excellence in Education should have written a report called “Nations at Grave Risk,” writes Ernest Boyer in the December issue of Momentum, the journal of the National Catholic Educational Association.
“It is urgently important--as we look toward the year 2000--that the vision of our schools be not just national, but global,” he states.
Mr. Boyer is the president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the author of High School, a report on the status and future of secondary education in America.
In his essay, Mr. Boyer suggests the development of a core curriculum that would promote “cultural literacy.”
The “core” should include the study of ideas and traditions that are common to all people “by virtue of their membership in the human family,” he states.
“I do not suggest either a doomsday or ‘Buck Rogers’ curriculum for our schools,” Mr. Boyer continues. “But in the quiet moments before dawn I wonder how our current push for excellence in education relates to the urgent global issues our students will confront.”
The executive committee of the National Catholic Educational Association’s department of elementary schools will make the development of educational programs that encourage a “commitment to Gospel values” a top priority during this school year, ncea officials announced in the November issue of ncea Notes.
By the 1986-87 school year, the committee will have developed a “how-to” manual on promoting Christian values through the school environment, the curriculum, teaching methods, service programs, and student evaluation.
Other priorities for the committee include the promotion of educational excellence in Roman Catholic schools, better training for school principals, and improving the schools’ development efforts.
Minority enrollment in independent schools remained steady this school year, according to statistics from the Independent Schools Association of the Central States, a network of 150 independent schools in 15 Midwestern states.
The survey results show that 6.6 percent of the students in the schools are black, 4.7 percent are Asian, 1.3 percent are Hispanic, and 0.2 percent are American Indian.
“It does appear that that isacs minority enrollment has held its own,” writes Thomas Read, president of the association, in the November issue of the isacs Newsletter.
But the survey also indicates that only 1.9 percent of the teachers are black, 0.7 percent are Hispanic, 0.3 percent are Asian, and 0.02 percent are American Indian.
“A high priority for isacs schools should be to bring the proportion of minority faculty at least to the level of current minority enrollment,” suggests Mr. Read.--cc
